Cass

Order Korean fried chicken almost anywhere in Seoul and a cold Cass lands on the table before you've finished asking. Brewed by Oriental Brewery, Cass is South Korea's dominant mainstream lager — very pale, very cold, and deliberately neutral, a beer designed to play the supporting role to food and company.

It launched in Seoul in 1994 with 'Fresh' in the flagship's name and freshness as the entire pitch. What made it a giant is Korean drinking culture itself: chimaek, the fried-chicken-and-beer pairing, and somaek, the ritual of dropping a shot of soju into a glass of beer. A clean, fizzy lager is the perfect canvas for both, and Cass leaned in harder than anyone.

Oriental Brewery now belongs to AB InBev, which makes Cass the South Korean flagship of the world's biggest brewer; Brand Finance ranked it the 23rd most valuable beer brand on earth in 2025 — striking reach for a lager that rarely travels beyond Korea and its diaspora groceries.

Extremely pale, aggressively carbonated, and almost weightless: a whisper of steamed rice and cracker malt, barely-there hops, and a scrubbed-clean finish that resets your palate between bites of fried chicken or spoonfuls of stew. Serve it colder than you think — that is the point.